Melissa Marr - Wicked Lovely

She sat on the edge of the bed, folding a leg up in front of her, leaving the other foot on the floor. "It feels weird. Like it's more important now that I'm here."

"It should be." He stood on the opposite side of the bed, holding a clear jewel-case. "I've done it the other way, with people who didn't matter. It's not the same."

"Then why did you do it?"

"Felt good." He didn't look away, even though he seemed uncomfortable. He shrugged. "Drunk. All sorts of reasons, I guess."

"Oh." Aislinn did look away.

"It got old. There's, umm" — he cleared his throat— "some papers over there. I wanted to give them to you before…I was going to bring it up the other day…but, and, now…" He pointed.

Aislinn reached out and pulled the papers off the table with the candles. On the top sheet she read "Huntsdale Clinic." She looked over at him. "What?"

"Tests. I had them earlier this month. I get them regularly. Thought you'd want to know. I want you to know." He picked up one of the pillows, flipping it over in his hands. "I haven't been, you know, unsafe in the past, but still…things happen."

Aislinn skimmed them, test results for everything from HIV to chlamydia, all negative. "So…"

"I planned on talking about this before…" He squeezed the pillow between his hands, mashing it. "I know it's not all romantic."

"It's good." She bit her lip. "I've never…you know."

"Yeah. I know."

"There's been nothing that would, umm, put me at risk." She picked at the comforter, feeling increasingly shy.

"Why don't I go…"

"No, please, Seth" — she climbed across the bed and pulled him toward her—"stay with me."

Several hours later Aislinn felt her hands curling, gripping the comforter. She'd been kissed before but not like that, not there. If sex was any better than that, she wasn't sure she'd survive it.

All the stress, the worry, had faded away under Seth's touch.

Afterward he held her. He still had his jeans on, scratchy against her bare legs.

"I don't want to be one of them. I want this." She put her hand on his stomach. She slipped her pinky nail in the edge of his belly ring. "I want to be here, with you, go to college. I don't know what I want to be, but it's not a faery. Definitely not a faery queen. I am, though; I know it. I just don't know what to do now."

"Who says you can't still do all that even if you are a faery?"

She lifted her head to look at him.

"Donia uses the library. Keenan goes to Bishop O.C. now. Why can't you still do the things you want?" He slid a handful of her hair forward, making it fall over her shoulder onto his chest.

"But they do those things because of this game of theirs," she protested, but even as she said it, she wondered. Maybe it didn't have to be all or nothing.

"So? They had reasons; you have different reasons. Right?"

It sounded so much easier when he said it—not easy, but not impossible, either. Could she really keep her life? Maybe Keenan hadn't answered her questions because he didn't like the answers.

"I do." She laid her head back down on him, smiling. "More reasons every day."

"It's her." Beira stomped her foot, setting frost rippling over Donia's yard like a glistening wave. "You cannot let her near the staff. Do you hear me?"

Donia winced at the bite in Beira's voice. She didn't speak or move as Beira's wind ripped through the yard, shredding trees, uprooting the fall flowers still clinging to life.

Beira tossed the staff on the ground and said, "Here. I brought it. Followed the rules."

Donia nodded. In all the times Beira had brought the staff to her, in all the times they'd played this game, there had never been any real doubt in the Winter Queen.

This time it's different. This girl is different.

Beira's eyes had bled to pure white, her temper so close to uncontrollable that Donia couldn't speak.

"If she comes for it, lifts the staff" — Beira held out her hand and the staff moved toward her like a living thing going to its master—"you can stop her. I cannot. Those were the terms Irial dictated when we bound the whelp: if I actively interfere, the mantle that makes that mortal the Summer Queen is unavoidably manifest. I lose my throne; she gains hers and frees Keenan."

Beira caressed the staff as she spoke. "I cannot act. Balance, damnable balance, those were trial's terms when we placed the limits on Keenan."

Donia could not speak much above a whisper, but she tried, "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that those pretty blue lips of yours could solve my problem." Beira tapped a finger twice against her own far-too-red lips. "Is that clear enough?"

"It is." Donia forced herself to smile. "And if I do that, you'll free me?"

"Yes." Beira bared her teeth in a cruel snarl. "If it's not done in the next couple days, I'll send the hags to her, and then I'll be back for you."

"I understand." Donia licked her lips and tried to match the cruelty in Beira's face.

"Good girl." Beira kissed Donia's forehead and pressed the staff into her hands. "I knew I could count on you to do the right thing. It'll be fitting for you to be the one to bring Keenan to his knees after all he's done to you."

"I haven't forgotten anything Keenan's done." Donia did smile then, and she knew by Beira's approving look that she looked as cruel as Beira did.

Holding the staff so tightly it hurt her hands, Donia added, "I'm going to do exactly what I should."

Keenan dismissed the guards, the girls, everyone but Niall and Tavish. The guards who'd followed Aislinn confirmed his suspicion of where she went. She knows now. How can she still turn away? Go to him?

Niall counseled patience as Keenan paced through the loft. It was what he had offered Aislinn earlier, but now, now that he knew, how could he wait?

"I've been patient for centuries." Keenan felt frantic. As he paced, his queen—the one he'd waited for his whole life, for centuries —was in the arms of another, a mortal no less. "I need to talk to her."

Niall stepped in his path. "Think about this."

Keenan pushed Niall aside. "Do you see her coming here? I'm here. I didn't follow her to his house, but she didn't come to me."

"A few hours?" Niall spoke calmly, as he'd done countless times before when Keenan's temper made him act foolishly. "Just until you're calmer."

"Every moment I wait, Beira has a chance of learning what happened, where she is." He went to the door. "She already knows of what the Eolas said. That's why she came out tonight. If she learns what Aislinn can do already, what we can do together…"

"Listen to yourself." Niall put a hand on the door, keeping it closed. "You aren't going to convince her when you're like this."

"Let him go, Niall," Tavish said, not raising his voice, but sounding even more assertive than usual. His gaze was terrifying as he told Keenan, "Remember what we spoke of. Nothing is too far to go in pursuit of this one. We all know it's her."

A horrified look came over Niall's face. "No."

Keenan shoved Niall aside, wrenched open the door, and promptly collided with Donia. A hiss of steam rose from their bodies as he stood pressed against her frigid body for that too-brief moment.

As undisturbed as the winter's first snow, she came into his loft—of her own volition, no less—and said placidly, "Close the door. We need to talk."

Donia stepped past Keenan, exposing her worried expression to his advisors rather than to him. He didn't need to see that, not as upset as he already was.